Tithe

by Claire Vale

  “You can’t fail unless you try,” Kane drawls. “And you don’t strike me as someone who’s afraid to fail.”

  My spine bristles.

  I think I’ve just been insulted.

  Kane walks off to resume his watch at the base of the rope net without another glance my way.

  I shove the infuriating man out of my head and concentrate on Gabe’s descent.

  As soon as his feet touch the ground, he jogs over with a smile covering his face. “That was awesome.”

  “You’re crazy.”

  “No, seriously…” He loops an arm around me as he turns to watch the next group step up.

  “Daniel almost fell.”

  “Nah, he was just goofing around. It’s almost impossible to fall. You’ll probably just get tangled in the ropes.”

  “Almost and probably, yeah, that’s very reassuring.”

  His one-armed hug tightens. “No one cares if you don’t want to do it.”

  Maybe not, but something inside me does seem to care.

  I don’t really make any conscious decision, I just suddenly find myself standing at the base of the net with Georga and Kadin.

  Georga doesn’t hesitate. She shoots me a grin and starts scrambling foot over hand like a monkey born into the jungle.

  I wet my lips, giving Kane a sideways look. “Shouldn’t there be some sort of safety feature? Like a harness or something?”

  He cocks a brow at me. “Where’s the fun in that?”

  “This is supposed to be fun?”

  I turn my attention back to the task. The net is actually like a lot of rope ladders knitted together. How hard can it be? Reaching up to grip a rung of rope above my head, I fit one foot into a lower slot and haul myself up while my other hand and foot finds a spot for purchase.

  I keep going with lengthy pauses each time the net sways and threatens to fling me off. Kadin has a decent start on me, Georga is streaks ahead, but this isn’t a race for me. It isn’t too bad, until I foolishly glance down. I’m in the last group to climb and except for Kane and Gabe, everyone has dispersed around the gym. Then I realize I’m a dozen or so feet above the ground. I don’t know if it’s fear of heights or just a general fear of risk, but my mouth turns dry and I break out into an instant sweat that chills my skin and greases the grip of my fingertips.

  What am I doing? Not rising to the challenge of Kane’s maybe insult. I don’t do stupid like that.

  But I can’t stop. There’s this burning need inside me to push on into the abyss. I reach for the next rung, secure my slippery grip before bringing my opposite foot up. The net shudders and I freeze, muscles tense, fingernails digging into my palms around the strip of rope.

  Georga zips past me, practically sliding down the rungs.

  Once the swaying settles, I continue, one more reach, one more rung. I don’t look down again, I look up. My thigh muscles strain with the effort to climb and hold on. A slight tremor comes and goes in my left arm.

  I keep going.

  I’m driven by a fiery determination that resolves into a train of unexpected thought. Maybe I trump all my fears and get to touch the ceiling. Maybe I lose my grip and plummet to my death. There are two paths to every choice we make, even the very worst choices.

  Perhaps this is what sent me up here, a need to peek inside Gabe’s head, to step over the safety line and see what proper fear looks like from the other side. It’s not breezy, but there are shades of hope around the shadows. It’s the possibility of survival, not certain death. Gabe has always believed the Tithe is an offering, not a sacrifice.

  A broken sense of victory grabs me by the chest as I reach the top of the net. Even if Gabe is right, even if he somehow evades the beasts and doesn’t end up as food, I’ll never know and I’ll never see him again. And I can’t touch the damn ceiling! The net stops just over an arm’s length above me.

  I’m bathed in sweat and my arms are trembling from exhaustion, but I can’t give up now. That ceiling has become some kind of symbol while I wasn’t looking. If I stretch just a fraction more, I can breach the gap between me and Gabe. If I can just brush my fingertips across the gray plaster, Gabe will choose me.

  I hold on tight, suck in a deep breath, and look down to see where Kadin is. My stomach lurches. The world around me starts to sway, but I manage to watch until he releases his hold and drops the last couple of feet to the ground. He was climbing on the far end and I have no idea if he made it all the way up or not. But he’s off now, which means there’ll be no more sudden jerks on the net.

  Gritting my teeth, I curl my body in to bring my foot one rung higher—I only need a couple of inches. My clammy fingers test and re-test my grip while I prepare to let go (briefly) with my other hand. It’s not exactly a death-defying act. I haven’t grown a heart of iron on the climb up.

  “Senna!” Gabe calls. “What are you doing?”

  My eyes are on the ceiling, my nerves coiled tight as a spring.

  “She’s stuck,” I hear Gabe say. He sounds panicked. “She can’t move up or down. We have to help her.”

  “She’ll be fine,” Kane drawls.

  Thank you, Kane. For once, I appreciate his underwhelming concern.

  I take a deep breath, then sweep my free hand high with fingers flexed and give a small bounce with my foot on the rope rung. My foot leaves the security of the rung for a split second and my body arches up into the stretch, and the tips of my fingernails scrape the ceiling.

  The fleeting contact charging through me like an electric current.

  I did it!

  On the reverse bounce, something happens. I don’t know what. My foot barely left the rope. But somehow there’s only air on the downward step.

  My euphoria cuts out into a blur of confusion as my clammy one-handed grip slides. I slam my outstretched arm down, grappling for purchase as my other foot slips. My vision is blinded with sweat or panic or maybe just the pain as my fingers finally find something to grasp but it’s a frail grip of burning, slicing skin—an instant later I’m falling again, skimming down the net, and the twine in the rope has turned to slithers of glass.

  I’m moments away from death. I know that with every ounce of breath not yet shocked out of my lungs.

  My life doesn’t flash before my eyes.

  I don’t hear my mother’s voice gently calling me home.

  There’s only the black nothingness of a starless night and the roar of blood rushes to my head…and then an oddly padded, bouncing roll instead of a hard, deadly splat.

  Heart drumming between my ears, I squeeze my eyes open to find Gabe peering down on me, his face ashen and his jaw crunched into some mix of anguish and fury.

  I’m alive.

  I don’t know how, but I’m alive.

  Laughter bursts from my strangled lungs. It’s not a funny laugh. It’s a wheezy, hysterical giggle that I can’t control.

  I scramble to sit up but it’s harder than it should be. My limbs are jelly and they seem to be falling through big spaces in the floor.

  “Easy there, tiger, hold onto the rope and lie still until I lower you,” Kane’s voice reaches me, calm and collected.

  I stop struggling as my gaze widens to take in Jessie, Chris, Daniel, Harry, and others, all gathered behind Gabe with frantic eyes. Wider, to where Kane stands with some black gadget in hand.

  There’s a whirring noise. I glance up to see a track I hadn’t noticed extending along the ceiling from the metal contraption that fastens the rope climbing fence. Some kind of pulley system that whipped the lower edges up and out into a safety net that caught me before I hit the ground.

  My breaths are still shallow, every inhale trapped a moment too long for comfort, but the hysteria bubbling up inside me dissipates. Kane should have told me. I asked if there were safety features in place.

  I should be mad at him.

  I’m not.

  I’m shaken and trembling and I’m relieved, grateful for his quick reflexes and whatever he did
with that gadget to scoop me up into the net.

  My fingers claw around the rope for grip. I hold on tight to ease my roll as the edges of the net lowers to the ground.

  Gabe offers a hand and I take it, use his strength to pull myself up on wobbly legs and then to lean on as he wraps an arm around my waist.

  “Show’s over.” Kane claps his hands together twice. “Let’s give them some space, okay? You, too,” he adds to Jessie as she tries to crowd in around Gabe. “Come on, guys, if you’re really this bored, we can do an hour of sprints.”

  That gets them moving, opening up the air around me. The fist around my lungs relaxes.

  “I’m fine,” I tell Jessie and she reluctantly steps back, turns to leave.

  Kane draws closer, an intense look darkening his gaze as it falls on Gabe. “You should get her to the infirmary.”

  “No,” I protest. “Nothing broken, I swear.”

  His eyes come to me. “You were screaming all the way down.”

  I was? I do remember the cutting pain and I turn my hands out to check. Not cuts, but thick, smudged lines are burned into the palm and across the fingers of my left hand.

  Kane takes another step closer to inspect my injuries. “Rope burns. You should get some ointment on there.”

  I angle a stubborn look on him. “I’m not going to the infirmary,”

  “Then I’d best go find a first-aid kit,” he says and walks off without any Alder argument.

  Huh.

  “I need to sit a minute,” I tell Gabe, unwrapping his arm from me so I can sink to the ground on my knees.

  He joins me, sitting cross-legged in front of me. His face is still that ashen gray, washing into the blue of his eyes. “Were you trying to kill yourself?” he asks hoarsely.

  “Of course not.” I rub my brow, dropping my gaze from his worried look.

  “Then what was that? What the hell were you trying to do?”

  “Touch the ceiling…” I remember the revelation I had up there, the conclusion I came to. I may be wrong. I don’t think I am. “I wasn’t trying to kill myself, not any more than you are, and still I did almost die.”

  My eyes lift to him, my voice soft, “You think you have a chance to survive outside the wall, don’t you?”

  Some color creeps back into his face. “I have the skills, Senna. I’ve been tracking and hunting all my life.”

  “Rabbits!”

  “I’m strong and I’m fast.”

  “And what if you’re not stronger? Not faster than the beasts? There won’t be any safety net for you, Gabe.”

  “I won’t be careless.”

  I ignore the obvious dig. “How far do you have to run? And what happens when you stop?”

  “I don’t know, Senna.” He sounds more weary than irritated. “Maybe I’ll travel and see the world.”

  I’m not amused.

  Rocking forward, I place my hands on his knees, tilt my head to look into his eyes. I see no give and take there. Removing Chris from my future wasn’t enough. Showering him with my love isn’t enough. I don’t want to do this, but it’s all I have left. “How did you feel when you saw me falling?”

  He bites down on his back teeth, squaring his jaw. His expression turns brittle—one tap with a pointed object and it might shatter. “That’s not fair.”

  I have absolutely no interest in being fair right now.

  I will be selfish, I will be cruel, I will be everything it takes because I’m not just fighting for me and Gabe, I’m fighting for his life.

  “That is how this feels for me, Gabe, every second of every day, like I’m watching you fall, knowing that in just a few more days, you will hit the ground and I’ll have to watch that, too.”

  “Senna, don’t…” he chokes out, his eyes pleading with me to stop, to take it back, to hide the truth of what he’s doing to me so he doesn’t have to see.

  I can’t, but I don’t press any more either.

  Now he knows.

  Now he sees.

  What he does with that…well, there are no certainties, but I can’t imagine a world in which Gabe would leave me to suffer this much.

  When Kane returns with the first-aid kit, I try to take the tube of ointment from him.

  “Let me,” he insists, evading my reach.

  I grimace and turn my palm over, training my eyes on the wall beyond him, steeling myself against the effect of Kane, against the warm sensations of his skin brushing mine as he applies the ointment and wraps the bandage…and it’s there, I feel his presence and his touch like the glow of sunrise stealing up my body, but it’s not an irresistible force that won’t be denied.

  I’m hyperaware of Gabe’s eyes on us.

  If Kane is my disease, then Gabe is my cure. I will never trade love for some shallow, physical attraction. There’s no competition. My body may notice Kane, my senses may heighten like an animal that has caught a rare scent, but there is no real temptation.

  Only once Kane is done and has stepped back, do I allow my eyes to connect with his. “Thanks,” I say. “And thanks for the safety net.”

  “My pleasure.” He snaps the lid closed on the first aid kit and stalk offs with a throwaway comment to Gabe, “She’s all yours.”

  26

  We’re treated to a screening of a film in the hours before lunch. Everything within me wants to tuck up into Gabe in the back row, but I’m honestly afraid he’ll push me away and I don’t think I could take that.

  I touched the ceiling to breach the gap between us.

  The raw honesty that came afterward has pushed him another mile away.

  The lights in the auditorium dim. The lectern up front has been removed so it doesn’t obstruct our view of the image that flickers across the white screen. The image centers and then the film begins.

  It’s a strange movie about a prison and the inmates there, more gritty and disturbing than anything usually shown in the town hall. The first few minutes alone have me thinking kindly of my own experience with hard labor and guards. I’m surprised the Alders deem this appropriate for viewing.

  Some scenes are so brutal and graphic, I have to close my eyes. I’ve never before thought about how sheltered we are in Ironcross. I’ve never felt sheltered, but now I feel like a babe in the woods suddenly wretched from my mother’s embrace into the jaws of a bear.

  During one of those scenes, Gabe slips a hand into mine, his thumb gently massaging the heel of my palm, reminding me he is there, always there for me, and he doesn’t let go. I don’t know what to make of it. I don’t know if it’s hope or if it’s just the friendship we’ve reverted to—non-kissing best friends.

  You need to make a decision about your pair, Senna, soon. That’s the kind of conversation we have now.

  I don’t pull my hand from him, though. I take comfort in his touch. I don’t want to fight. I don’t want to freeze him out. I haven’t given up.

  Despite the unsavory belly of the story, I slowly become engrossed. I find myself rooting for Andy, even before it becomes apparent he was wrongly accused of the two murders that sent him there, and for Red, who is totally guilty yet draws me in with his soulful character. The clever escape and idyllic beach setting at the end is perfect, it’s what I want for them. I don’t know why it leaves me so unsettled.

  The lights come on as soon as the movie credits start rolling up and Lt. Palmer enters through the door at the bottom. He brings a stack of folders, one for each of the six teams we’re divided up into for some group activity based on the film—he doesn’t say what. He just dumps the folders on the front row of seats and informs us, “Please complete the assignment and hand your folder in at my office before six pm. This is not an optional exercise.”

  “Great,” Jessie grumbles on my left. “Homework.”

  She does cheer up when she sees we’re assigned to the same team, along with Georga, Grace, Kadin and Jacob. Grace takes charge of the folder and I don’t bother checking what the assignment is until our team gathers in
a circle on the quad grass after lunch.

  It’s a single question requiring a single answer, which means our team has to agree on a unanimous approach. I say approach, because this is not a simple Q&A assignment—that’s something we all agree on, no discussion required. This is an Alder interrogation of our collective mindset, a form of rooting out the seeds of dissidence amongst us…or maybe we’re just being paranoid, but who is willing to take that risk?

  One year on from when Red and Andy meet on the beach, where do you think their lives and deeds should take them, and why? Revise the final ending.

  “That’s easy,” Jessie says. “Red should totally buy a beach bar and spend his days staring out over that gorgeous ocean and Andy seriously needs to meet the love of his life, someone full of fun and spark to put a smile on his face.”

  “Yeah, he was kind of tragic,” Kadin says, looking at me for some reason, his gaze lingering, as if he has more to say.

  I avert my eyes and they land on Gabe. All the teams are spread out on the grass, enjoying the sunny afternoon, but Gabe isn’t even making a show of participating. He’s lying on his back, face turned to the sky with an arm folded across his eyes. It’s like he’s already moved on beyond our world to a place where none of this matters.

  Grace nibbles on the end of a lead pencil, thinking about it. “I agree about Andy. I mean, he was innocent of the murders and spent all those years in prison. It’s so unfair. He deserves something for that. But Red was guilty. He earned that sentence. It’s probably not okay that he gets to live a life of luxury like some kind of reward. Remember what Alderman Keelan said: we’re responsible for our own actions.”

  “So what do we do about Red?” Georga says drily. “Tell him to go die in a ditch?”

  Grace’s nostrils flare. “Of course not, he can get a job like normal hardworking people and contribute to society.”

  I feel Kadin’s eyes on me and glance his way. His gaze falls away, then returns to me with a shy smile. My response is automatic, a quick smile. I’m starting to wonder if I have gravy on my face from lunch.